Inspiration for Meeting Designers

Why, on earth, should I use Meeting Design?

Do you remember the feeling of your head exploding with new ideas and the sensation in your stomach after meeting all these interesting people? You were tired and wanted to get home, but at the same time you wanted to stay in this oasis of new friends and inspiration.

I have tried it many times, and I can tell you it’s great. Like falling in love for the first time. I hope you have tried it too.

Isn’t this the kind of experience we want to give our conference attendees? To let them inhale some of that meeting magic.

You probably already create meetings like that. But why not get some more of that sweet stuff?

Why not become the wizard of conferences and conventions, a pusher of extraordinary experiences.

I think I can help you. I think I found that mindblowing formular, that can transform the participants and create amazing outputs and learning experiences. In the meeting alkymists’ laboratorie we call that formular Meeting Design.

I would love to share it with you, so we together can transform the meeting industry and get rid of all those terrible boring meetings, that are neither valuable for the meeting owner or the participants.

But, maybe you ask yourself. “Why should I learn about that fuzzy concept, Meeting Design, when I’m doing some pretty damn good meetings already?”.

Firstly. What was succesful last year does not necessarily work this year. Meeting owners and participants quickly get accustomed to things and will expect new ideas and a creative edge to the meeting.

Secondly. The demand for meetings that increase value is constantly growing, so you have to grow too. Why not get a few more branches on your Tree of Life?

Thirdly. Those beautiful young people, born after 1980, the Millennials, Generation Y or whatever we choose to call them, they are different from an middelaged guy like me. I didn’t start to use computers before my third year at university, wheras my 14 year old daughter took a selfie with the midwife and was tweeting, when she was born ( #hereIam, #Imarockstar #wherestheparty). Of course this is not true, but close. Millennias are so used to technology, social medias and all those amazing new inventions, that they expect the future of meetings to be so much different from what I grew up with. They want interactivity, speed, variety, sharing and the air to be buzzing with the latest tech fetish. The classic meeting format with powerpoints from hell, is not exactly their cup of tea.

“What if I don’t care?”

That’s up to you. You can do whatever you want. I don’t care, but maybe your delegates and meeting owners do.

You have to understand that what we do is really important. Maybe you think, that we are in the business of creating better meetings and effective logistics. We are not. It’s much more important than that.

We are in the business of creating a better world. A world where people don’t waste their life on meaningless boredom, but get together and create dreams, hopes and solutions for the future. We are the designers, the alkymists that create a space, where the human race can connect, share, laugh, think and even fall in love. That’s what we do.

If you like that idea, then read on.

In this blog I will give you insigt into how meeting design can be done. There are other suggestions out there, which are really good, but this one isn’t bad either. I hope my blog can inspire you to create mindblowing meetings. And I’m not talking about those small charming events with 3-10 participants taking place around a meeting table. I’m talking about those big crazy creatures, with 50-5000 delegates, that it takes extraordinary strenghts and courage to handle.

This blog is not just pure imagination from another guy gone braindead by meetings. What I give you is clean and sober stuff based on my own comprehensive experience with meeting design. I’ve done a lot of that stuff the last 15 years in little happy Denmark and in many other countries, with all kinds of organizations.

I will also introduce you to the latest research on learning, motivation and human behaviour. Sounds boring? It’s not, it’s the best. I know science can be so intangible, but I will do my very best to make it simple and amusing to understand. We need science, it’s hard knowledge and not just fluffy personal experiences. We need it if we want to create fantastic meetings repeatedly and not more or less incidentally.

Before we continue there are a few things you need to know about me.

I was not “born” in the meeting industry but arrived here after many years of work with pedagogy, psychology, innovation and theater. Thus I believe I can bring new ideas and perspectives to our big meeting family.

Apart from writing this blog, I’m a meeting designer, speaker, facilitator and concept developer. My top strenths are creativity, curiosity, humor and courage. My biggest hero is Indiana Jones. He’s always willing to go on adventure, explore new lands and improvise if the plan isn’t working and at the end he always finds the treasure and gets the girl. I think the meeting industry needs more Indiana Joneses.

What the heck is meeting design?

And now you probably ask yourself, why doesn’t he get to the point, and explain what meeting design is? Let me do it as simple as I can.

I love food. Probably one of the reasons, why I love the meeting industry. I’ve been eating food all of my life, so even though I’m not a chef, I will claim I know something about food. I know it’s easy to make, anyone can boil a cup of rice or chop a carrot, but I also know that it’s really difficult to make great food. Gourmet food. Food that people will pay 1000 $ to taste or travel to another country to take a bite of. It’s really, really difficult – almost an artform. You need exactly the right ingredients, you put them together in the right order, cook it with an intuitive sense of taste, timing and texture and finally you serve it with elegance and artistic surplus. Not a business for newbies or impatient fast food lovers.

Meetings are the same way. Anyone can put together a meeting and gather 500 people in a barn, but to make a great meeting is something completely different. First of all you need exactly the right ingredients. In the meeting industry, there is common understanding of what these ingredients are – an amazing venue, great food, brilliant technical equipment, loads of chairs and tables, inspiring speakers and a tidal wave of coffe. All these things are great, but the most important thing is missing in that recipe. It’s like making a burger without the beef or sushi without fish. The main ingredients in any meeting should be sharp objectives, great content, inspiring working methods, ambitious results and a tidal wave of participant involvement.

And that’s what meeting design really is. To understand the importance of all these ingredients. Put them together in the right order. Design it with an intuitive sense of taste, timing and texture and finally serve it with elegance and artistic surplus.